Watch Dogs – Head to Head with the ctOS Mobile App

There are few things we enjoy more than griefing our friends. Lucky for people like us, we’re no longer limited to playing on a console if we want mess with each other in Watch Dogs. The game’s ctOS Mobile app pits friend against friend in thrilling and fast-paced challenges, as I experienced in my hands-on session with the app. To start things off, I had to locate my opponent on a map of Chicago, and then I was able to challenge him with a simple tap on his icon. Once he accepted, his job was to hit four checkpoints within the time limit. My job? Making sure he didn’t.

By dragging the helicopter on the screen to hover over the console player’s marker (which moved in real time with his movements on the screen) I was able to see the various aspects of Chicago’s infrastructure I could affect. As my opponent stole a car and headed toward an intersection I quickly hacked the traffic lights, sending cars careening into him. His luck held out and he was able to keep moving. If a player dies during the challenge it’s not an automatic game over, but he’ll have to start back at the beginning and none of the time is returned.

I threw up a blocker as he sped by… and missed him by a hair. No worries, because I caught him with a steam pipe hack shortly after, sending his car rolling. Finding a new vehicle cost him precious time and the commotion he had caused in the the city – or, to be more precise, the commotion I helped cause for him – had the police on his trail, slowing him down further. Unfortunately for the console player, I was simply too skilled in hack-fu and he never made it to the finish line.

The ctOS Mobile app will be available on both Android and iOS (tablets and phones). “Watch Dogs – ctOS Mobile players don’t need to own the console game or even a console to play,” Technical Lead Frédéric Blais told us. However, app players will need to have a friend playing the game on the console in order to hop in and challenge them. Blais went on to say, “Watch Dogs – ctOS Mobile is a free app, with its own progression skills; the more you play, the better you will get and the better the experience will become.” Take the app anywhere and play anytime. As long as you have access to wifi or a 3G network, you have access to the city of Chicago.

Watch_Dogs™

Players will assume the role of Aiden Pearce, a new type of vigilante who, with the help of his smartphone, will use his ability to hack into Chicago’s central operating system (ctOS) and control almost every element of the city. Aiden will be able to tap into the city’s omnipresent security cameras, download personal information to locate a target, control systems such as traffic lights or public transportation to stop a chase, and more. The city of Chicago is now the ultimate weapon.

Anne Lewis began her career as an editor at PlayStation: The Official Magazine, where she worked under Gary Steinman. She can now be found skulking around the UbiBlog, once more working for Gary. Alas. When Anne isn’t writing about games, she's alphabetizing her comic book collection or shooting at stuff with a bow. Follow her on Twitter: @BDRAnneLewis

App is great but i have the game on xbox one and the app always tries to make me log in to playstation network so i cannot even play the mobile game. Its beautifully designed and the console game is great fun, but it feels like the app just hates xbox gamers

Got a surface pro, which is a tablet PC but i can't use this App. Why does Ubisoft consistently treat W8 and Xbox users as second class customers. They've totally ignored the Smartglass and Kinect, compared to implentations in games like Dead Rising 3. The only game on Xbox One to not to have unique art for each of its achievements is AC4. These may seems like small details, but added together they begin to tell a story. Microsoft even offers devs free use of their cloud servers for things like multiplayer (like Titanfall does) but so far Uibsoft ignore this option and we put up with their own insufficient servers and P2P. Would love to read a Ubisoft press release explaining all this.

Windows Phone 8, what the hell UBI!!! This is totally unacceptable. I have a Lumia 1520, one of the most powerful smartphones on the market with a 6" screen at 1080p and a quadcore 2.2GHz Processor and your telling me the experience will be better on a poxy little iphone?

Considering that playing with your friends for the most part is hacking each others games, griefing is about the only word that applies. With exception to the one where you compete with another group to decrypt a file. Kinda like assassin's creed, where playing with your friends means trying to kill each other. You just don't hit accept if you don't want to participate, or just don't connect to the net while your playing.

Yes, please, Ubi, spend $400k+ to support an OS that has a 4%market share. Heck, why not make it for the Zune, while you're at it.. what's another $500k+ for that one. It's got about the same % of the market.

The lack of a Windows Phone 8 or Windows 8 tablet app is depressing. Would have assumed that a major publisher like Ubi could have put the resources forward to develop one. Lacking an app for a platform that is becoming mainstream and supported by Ubi's competitors is a little shocking actually. Especially seeing how forward thinking recent Ubi game announcements are when it comes to companion apps. Looks like we can accept the same cold shoulder for the Division as well or just wait for GTA-V for next gen? Rockstar after all managed to develop a companion app for us on the Windows platform.

Now, I've seen console written a dozen times. So I'm guessing it won't work for PC players. Also, does it -have- to be a friend or are there public games to enter as well, similar to the Need For Speed Overwatch? We're all PC peeps and none of us are gonna have it on a console.

I feel like if you are playing the game it would be hard to use this app at the same time. But I do think it will be pretty cool to have a friend help you out while you are playing the game. I would definitely like to see this on windows 8 and I also hope that I will be able to set waypoints with it! :)

But you need to remember that to the "griefing" begin the console/PC player needs to accept the challenge... So if he accepts to be challenge he also knows that the other player is going to grief him, so I don't think thats a problem.

By the other hand you may remember that the if the console/PC player requests for help the mobile player will be able to do the oposite to grief, help him to lose the cops and/or enemies.

So I think that Ubisoft's idea to this app was incredible, and making it able to run even for players that didn't bought the game just makes it better.

Using 'griefing' to describe this app is a double edged sword. Some people clearly enjoy griefing but being griefed can be a miserable experience and has often stop me playing a game I was otherwise enjoying. Glad to see you have to elect to participate in this as the person playing the game but as a new buzz word used to describe competitive play it's going to sound sour to many who've experienced mean spirited attacks in other games because someone needs to ruin other players fun in order to have 'fun' themselves.

I see that you are actually reading these comments, so why haven't you answered about the windows phone thing, mmm? Lots of people are clamouring about it, heck, it's even featured in your introduction video [http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-phone-featured-ubisofts-watch-dogs-e3-introduction-trailer ]! So basically, what you're saying is, WP is so cool that you featured it in your game, but .... for some unknown reason, perhaps incompetence, you cannot release an app on it? [Also, if you do, please make it available for the ~55% of the WP market that has 512 mb phones.]